Green
Revolution through click of a mouseHow
a environment scientist uses the Internet
to help environmentInterview
With Nepalnet

Vibek
Raj Maurya,
the coordinator, programmer and web
designer of EnvironmentNEPAL
shares us the story of one of the first
environmental portal of Nepal.

EnvironmentNEPAL started as a closed
room project in late 2000. At those
days, the team envisaged to develop
a portal that would exclusively deal
with environmental stories from Nepal.
Mr. Maurya did the programming part,
and the others complied the stories
and material for the site. Later Clean
Energy Nepal helped in promoting the
site. The site was officially launched
in June, 2002. Now, they have expanded
their work besides website and working
as an independent organization, focusing
on various environment fields.

During last
month I had chance to interview him.
In the interview, he talked about
his experience with EnvironmentNEPAL.
Please email any comments at info@nepalnet.net

Q.
How did the idea of the EnvironmentNEPAL
started?

Vibek
Raj Maurya:

Soon I graduated from
Kathmandu University back in 1999,
I joined Nepal Network (Satyam Online
Nepal) where I basically worked with
web designing and programming. As
I came from environment science background,
I was kind of hunted with the fact
that I was not working for this field.
My friends would cajole me pointing
out I was lucky to pursue my career
in IT, but I really wanted to get
back to environment.

It
was in mid 2000, when I proposed Anil
K Raut, with whom I had done numerous
activities during my college days,
about idea of maintaining an environmental
portal, where we would achieve news
and articles, instantly he agreed
to implement the idea. Then we started
working on it, in November 2000, we
launched the first version of EnvironmentNEPAL.
The site was known to limited friends
of ours who would provide us feedback
and guide us to make it make more
managed. I am grateful to all my friends
whom we pushed hard to go through
the site to provide us with new insights.
After this initial test, we had to
expand our team, so we summed up with
my friends from Kathmandu University
- Sudhir Bajimaya, Janak Pathak and
Prashanna Man Pradhan in late 2000.
We started compiling the resources
and data more with much intense interest
and spirit. We were stable and running
smooth since mid 2000. Later we were
again joined by Shrada Upadhyay, Shristi
Rajbhandari and Ganesh Ghimire.

In June 2002, Bhushan
Tuladhar and Clean Energy Nepal (CEN),
Kathmandu based NGO, helped in promoting
the website. CEN even provided us
with financial support to incur the
cost of web space for a year. On the
eve of World Environment Day 2001
(June 4, 2001), we were officially
launched. Now we are independent organization
located at Patan Dhoka we have extended
our fields beyond maintaining website
- we work on various environmental
field incorporation with different
organizations.

Q
.One year after website's launch,
what challenges are you and your group
facing to maintain and further develop
the website? How are you dealing with
those challenges?

Vibek:

Well,
organization as our which runs with
the spirit of volunteerism does have
challenges and hurdles in every next
activities. At the beginning, we had
to convince ourselves that we are
striding with some purpose which would
ultimately be shared in the society.
Since the project initiation we have
been facing financial crisis. We had
lobbied with potential institutions
for the partial funds but we were
made disappointed. Yet, the work was
on. Specifically, talking about our
website, due to technical and financial
limitation we may not have attained
the goal that we had dreamt, but still
we believe that there is always a
room for improvement.

As I noted earlier that
we have outgrown ourselves beyond
maintaining a website. We now work
on various environmental fields. Perhaps
it has minimized the monetary constrains
that we used to have earlier.

Q. Are
there any plans for major future changes
to the website?

Vibek:

We
had envisaged EnvironmentNEPAL's website
to be massive portal under which you
get nearly all the information on
Nepal's environmental domains. We
are still aspiring for that.

In fact, we need add-ons
on our existing architecture. The
next change would be a database of
wildlife, at first we would post the
profile of birds found in Nepal, subsequently
we would add other wildlife then.

We are looking for potentiality
to post audio and video programs telecasted
in radio and TV for live streaming.
With the development of Nepali Unicode
system, we are now inspired to maintain
a Nepali section of our site too,
so that who can just read Nepali could
enjoy going through our site.

These are potential
changes that are to amend in near
future.

Q.
Beside the website, has your group
done any other kind of outreach program?

Vibek:

To
say it bluntly we haven't been out
yet. However, last year in association
with CEN we conducted "Eco-career
workshop" to help fresh gradates
to pursue better career in environment
science. Besides, we are conducting
a couple of research which deals with
water right issues and environmentalism
in Nepal. Well, we have been participating
in the programs like World Environment
Day we still need to penetrate into
the society much deeper.

Q.
Any suggestions you want to give to
other special interest groups like
yours on the pros and cons of creating
and maintaining a website?

Vibek:

I think I haven't yet
traveled the stretch to suggest people
on pros and cons. I have seen many
encouraging sites with a special interest.
Yet there is lot more to be done.
I am sure more efforts would be put
to publish contemporary issues from
Nepal in the days to come.

However, one should
bear in mind that if one is working
for a social cause then he/she shouldn't
aspire for instant achievement. It
definitely takes time for your efforts
to get recognized. One should realize
at the initial stage, it's the spirit
of volunteerism which drives.